Throwing Bricks into Voids

(the seventh plea)

What Satan's most stalwart worshipers fail to realize is that the devil's lair is not housed within an unreachable, sulfur-choked realm. It is in a boardroom. The building itself is starkly tasteful, a modern glimpse of how steel and glass can be coaxed into quick angles and soft curves, strength woven into clean beauty. Every surface shines. Every staffer smiles. Employees are drafted with the promise of worthy roles in the betterment of man, both to make history and secure the future. Such lofty goals are reachable within these sterile, efficient walls. There is vital work done here, abolishing the world's inconveniences through calculated science with a splashy display of humanity.

Greatness is an advance away.

If one looks close enough, minor imperfections become a mirror into the facility's deficient soul. The glass's skin is leprous with spots, the trim needs retouching and the smiles aren't as genuine as the formation of lips suggests. Because inventors and scientists have more than genius in common; they have ego, a resilient pride that keeps the breed alive. Crafting miracles is not the hardest part of the job. They must hand over improbabilities made reality to a corporation whose logo will appear on literature that will make no mention of the individuals responsible. Each brain child is adopted by cold profiteers and the bonuses speak louder than the thank you of an ungrateful society for the improvements they've spilled blood to birth.

Gods as slaves. Slaves as gods.

The air in this place has lived many times, reincarnated into the deception of freshness like a corpse splashed with perfume. Olivia breathes in the charade, growing thicker the higher the elevator climbs. The executive suites are not filled with the brightest minds but the best liars, men who swear by the faultlessness of their goods and women who may not have slept their way into the power club but cannot shake off the mantle of such assumptions. Every idea is recycled, stale bread restructured to appear as a sumptuous meal. Tasting like bitter ash and yet desirable, so deeply needed by a populace eager for newness no matter how suspect the packaging.

The welcome is reconstituted.

Protocol sets standards for greeting those of the civilian sector whose assistance has proven useful in the past. In that raw past, Dunham had been capable of entering this building, this office, and playing the assigned role of modest public servant, approaching the administrators of Massive Dynamic with sufficient decorum to obtain partial answers while avoiding fraternization. Job offers had come her way in the beginning, when she shined, when she smiled. Before Olivia's suspicions had a proven basis. Still, while Eve had a natural fear of the serpent, the promises were as sweet as the fruit. The apple is knowledge. And knowledge opens windows. The first woman bit, chewed and swallowed the succulent lie for the sake of knowing.

Olivia bites down harder.

But a fruit grown from rotten seeds will host only decay within its core. The skin is sweet, the fleshly covering enticing while the center has piercing teeth of its own, snapping to bite whosoever might come close and inspect the flaws. Dunham is not surprised that the serpent wears red, shades of a perfect apple with fangs fairly glinting from the devious core. Red as the devil's cloak. A false smile adorns both women, neither fooled and the discourse begins with the most tender of subjects. The snake wastes no time this day, pleasantries unnecessary for two combatants no longer fastened to the plank of pretense. The demand is issued by a woman with no power and Nina Sharp grants a benevolent nod, which serves as a dismissal Dunham will not heed.

She spits the threat like a toxic seed.

It is a tiny thing, the vow to destroy but the ploy of nonexistent evidence had worked before. She'd once used it on another once, in the days when coercion alone compelled him to stay. In another dimension, she'd met a stranger who'd shared the secrets with her. He would have more secrets now and Olivia will collect them by appeal or by force. Bell is the key to an unsanctioned extraction and Nina is the strong that will lead Olivia through realities to reach him. But the string is of a knotty, abrasive nature and Olivia's hands grip painfully on what little length she can acquire. The void, Nina tells her, is the mutated child of Walter Bishop's window and its appearance is impossible to predict.

Ask Agent Farnsworth.

As the dawning frost settles into Dunham's veins, the void-brewed storm that claimed her friend is unsparingly detailed. Astrid had accomplished by chance the one thing that Olivia could not manage by persistence. She'd been in the right place when the window yawned, looking into the belly of the hungry chasm as it tossed the vehicle. Beautifully dressed and thoroughly mangled. There was nothing to be done for her. And there is nothing to be done for Peter. Nina coats her skin in contrition, citing a lifelong fondness of Dr Bishop's gifted son. And then the snake dances. Perhaps a deal can be brokered, the rebuilding of communication with Bell in exchange for undisclosed services in the future. No questions asked.

And Dunham shakes hands with Satan.